


Sinking and Surfacing

by calrissian18



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alcoholic Stiles Stilinski, Future Fic, Landlord Derek Hale, M/M, Punk Stiles Stilinski, Recreational Drug Use, Smoking Stiles, Tattooed Stiles Stilinski, woodworker Derek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-05-18 21:50:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14860929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calrissian18/pseuds/calrissian18
Summary: Derek's repairing broken things, Stiles is determined not to be one of them.





	Sinking and Surfacing

**Author's Note:**

> written for sterek_smooch. i thought that title was so clever and it has gotten no appreciation _at all_. despite that, thank you so much to everyone who alpha and beta read this for me: linnet and amber, and gemini for your life-saving notes! you were all so bolstering and wonderful and helped to make this so much better than the mess i originally made of it! any remaining mistakes are my own because i am exceptionally bad at deadlines.

Derek scrapes a knuckle against the bristle on his jaw and waits out the light.  The neck of his t-shirt catches the sweat beading on his chest, gathering damp and weight.  It’s stretched either because he hasn’t washed it right, or too often. Trying to learn proper fabric care from a sister whose last experience with the dryer had been when Laura convinced her to crawl into it hasn’t left him with the best skill-set.

His phone vibrates against his thigh and he checks his screen.  Speak of the domestically-challenged. “What.”

“You’re the one who texted me a picture of Snuggle Fabric Softener with a question mark — and I do appreciate that the lack of punctuation isn’t across all mediums.  What’s up?”

Derek jams his thumb into the button on the crosswalk, fingers wrapped around the handle of the corner store’s cheapest detergent.  “I’m sure you don’t need a degree in cryptography to figure out the question.”

“The temptation to hang up on you is getting stronger.”

Tires roll over pavement through the intersection in front of him, a grinding crunch and thump over the uneven street, the cab of it rumbling with a techno pop song he can’t unhear.  “You called me.”

“In direct response to an S.O.S.”  Derek doesn’t have time to point out that was hardly an S.O.S. before Cora says, “It’s got a bear on it.  I’m pretty sure wolves don’t associate.”

Derek rolls his eyes.

“How much blood  _do_  you need to get out?”

The light across the way flicks from red to white and Derek scrubs at the back of his hair, feeling the skitter of an insect or something worse where he knows there’s only the roll of beaded sweat.  “Still have all the same pints I came into town with.”

“Lies are more convincing when they’re small, just FYI.”

“I’m hanging up.”

“Is it — ”  She bites down hard on the words tumbling out of her mouth.  She hadn’t understood why he’d ended up here again; Derek had garbled the explanation.  Predictably.

He’s not coming  _back_  to Beacon Hills as much as he’s decided to stop running from it.  He’s tired — tired of letting it haunt his steps with reminders of defeat, of hunters, of death — of all shapes and sizes and shades of responsibility.  It’s not home but he’s done with letting it be the monster at his back too.

There’s less of a distance to her voice when she says, “It’s also perfectly acceptable for mythological creatures to drop all social conventions and burn or bury whatever isn’t salvageable.”

Derek rotates the container in his hand, glancing at it with a skeptical expression.  There’s a cheery sun with an aggressively erect thumbs-up and bared teeth eyeing him back.  “Noted.”

 

* * *

 

The washer breaks a quarter of the way through the cycle, just after it’s soaked his clothes through, leaving standing water and suds behind.  A knee to its side puts a dent in the frame but doesn’t otherwise intimidate it into starting up again.  He bends the metal out of shape trying to get a look at the problem, curses, then realizes he has no idea what he’s looking at anyway.

A picture snapped with his phone and a Maytag comment forum leads him to three comments — of varying levels of help.

The first is none, and just says: “Uh, Bruce… Dr. Banner?  The sun’s going down, man.”

The second includes a lot of jargon Derek doesn’t understand, model numbers, and the summation that it’s probably smarter to just upgrade to the next model in line.

The third offers photos of the tools he’ll need and a step-by-step guide for the exact repair.

He goes to the hardware store four blocks over, grabs nearly everything mentioned in the comment along with three rolls of duct tape and a bottle of water.  He stomps back up the stairs to his apartment to get the few items he already had shoved in drawers somewhere.

He pauses in the hallway, blinking at the figure halfway down it.

For a moment, Derek doesn’t recognize him.

The lazy sprawl outside his door, legs akimbo though still forming acute angles, one knee resting flat on its side on the concrete and the other propping up his forearm.  Between the spread of his thighs, on the triangle of ground left open, is a cardboard to-go cup that smells of stale coffee and fresh coconut rum. His arms are in front of his chest; large hands that are all tendon and muscle work over the slant of his phone’s screen, jabbing and tilting, teeth dragging at his lip in concentration, catching at a metal ring near the corner.  The music coming from it is tinny and designed to increase anxiety.

A hood blocks the rest of his face.  It’s fraying at the edges and the black-gone-blue color of faded.  On his feet are all black knock-off Converse that have seen better days and what Derek had mistaken for nail polish on his last three fingers is actually a purpling bruise under the nails.  Stiles holds them awkwardly off to the side rather than gripping them around his phone. He doesn’t look up to say, “Curing the greater ‘verse of disease, dude, give me a sec.”

Derek raises a brow at him but waits to enter his own apartment — plastic bag in his hand infinitesimally giving in to gravity, handles stretching — and huffs audibly to indicate that he’s doing so  _impatiently_.

Stiles rolls his lower lip into his mouth.  He thrusts his jaw forward at a vicious stab with his thumb and a trumpeting sound plays from the muffled speakers.  “S’right, I earned that M.D. with insomnia and dedication of the dangerous and unhealthy variety, you viral koosh balls.”  He shoves his phone into his hoodie pocket and picks up his cup, rotates it, and takes a swallow. He raises his head, the skin under his eyes a dark gray, his face pale, and his lips cracked.

Derek glances towards the grated window in the hall, shafts of sunlight heating the stone walls.  He nods at the cup. “It isn’t even ten a.m.”

Stiles lifts his stubbled chin higher, grin on his face.  It makes Derek itch to take a step back, all threat and no warmth.  He wags a finger. “Huh uh, that’s what we like to call, ‘snooping,’ and it’s frowned upon in these here parts.”  He stands up, leaving his cup on the ground. His right side is weaker than his left, given the way he lists when he first gets to full height.  Once he’s up, it’s harder to see the way he favors it. “Seriously, Abed, if you’re gonna do it, at least be subtle about it.”

He still talks without communicating, hides evasion in the pockets between his words or in the esotericism of them, but that’s about it for what’s remained unchanged.  He’s thinner — the kind of thin that reveals body type, the length of his bones and leanness of his torso. He’s not skeletal though, toned in a way that comes from living hard rather than enjoying an athletic hobby.  
  
It’s not unattractive, even if it is slightly grim.

He steps aside and Derek unlocks his door, holding it open behind him.

Stiles ignores the gesture.  His t-shirt looks as uncared for as Derek’s, wrinkled at the hem and threadbare in places.  He darts a tongue out at the silver lip ring that had caught Derek’s eye, shakes his head when Derek lifts his brows to indicate he should walk through.  “Just here for the informal survey: retired or cannon fodder?”

“Meaning?”

Stiles shrugs, hands shoved in his jacket pockets.  “You willing to throw your body at a problem or are you out of the game, sunning yourself in this industrial paradise,” he gestures with blasé sarcasm around at the concrete walls, “and guzzling watered-down mojitos like a champ?”

“Neither.”

Stiles huffs and his eyes dip down to the line of sweat plastering Derek’s t-shirt to his chest hair.  He starts speaking to it but manages to pull his eyes back up before finishing the sentence, “Listen, can Scotty call you or what?”  He frowns, digging in the corner of his pocket and comes back out with a cigarette that’s half-crushed. He shoves a hand down the back pocket of his jeans, pulls out a lighter, packs the tobacco tighter with his thumb and lights it at his lips.

Heat and poison escapes the corner of his mouth in a harsh stream.

He takes a deep drag waiting for Derek to answer, letting smoke fume out of his nostrils.  He shifts on his feet, drags a hand through his shaggy-dark hair, displacing the hoodie and revealing shorn sides and a messy, unwashed mop up top full of unnatural angles and lines like he’d been sleeping on it recently.

He rubs at the back of his neck, scrapes the side as he pulls away with short, dirt-encrusted fingernails, leaving red-then-pink lines behind.  “He won’t, if he doesn’t have to — so can he?” He shoves his hand back in his hoodie pocket. “If it comes to it?”

“You’re a glorified errand boy now?”  There’s something about this that’s getting to Derek, that’s making him sharper and meaner than he’s been in years.  The smoking or the drinking or the bruising, the  _something_  that means Stiles is only surviving here rather than thriving somewhere else.

He’s smarter than this.  Smarter than Derek, at least, which means if Derek knew enough to get out then Stiles definitely should’ve.

Stiles’ eyes glitter brightly, warningly, though the rest of his expression is all good-natured smirking.  His eyes say Derek should watch his fucking mouth. “Think I could petition for a bike in that case? Got my eye on a sweet little three-speed.”   He drags deep on the cigarette, grins wider, showing teeth. Smoke comes out with the words, wreathing them, “Listen, can you just answer the fucking question already?  No harm, no foul, if you want out. You were dead to us once, y’know. Won’t be much of an adjustment. Just trying to get a headcount, right?”

Derek considers, intending only to say, ‘no.’  He counts the harsh, nicotine-laden breaths as they rush through Stiles’ throat — at sixteen, he says, “Last resort.”

Stiles smirks, pulls deep on the cigarette, crushes the butt beneath his heel and stoops to pick up his coffee.  He takes a long swig and Derek is pretty sure he’s only drinking it as a vehicle for the liquor. He takes off down the hall.  His gait is uneven, whatever happened to his leg — it’s permanent and likely still pains him, but he’s quick and rounds the corner with his hand on the rail of the stairwell.  It makes a quick and sharp right angle after only five or so steps. Stiles jumps the corner and Derek hears him land heavily on the stairs just below.

Then he chastises himself for listening; he’s got a washer to fix.

 

* * *

 

Within the month, he’s crossed off that one repair (with more duct tape than the zero that was recommended) and added four more — the air conditioning unit, a window that had apparently never been properly sealed, the water heater, and broken tile in the bathroom stall from his jump when the water heater decided to add itself to the list.

A curse doesn’t seem quite as laughable as it should and the occult shop owner two towns over offers up that rowan works well for protection but, in all likelihood, the curse is just something called, ‘home ownership.’

Bundles of twined-together rowan in front of his windows and doors leaves something to be desired, even to his admittedly limited decorating skills.

Which is how Derek finds himself thinking about learning how to whittle.

 

* * *

 

It’s late August before his past comes barreling into his present again.  It’s been damp and humid the better part of the month and the streets are wet, glistening from headlights and streetlamps.  He eases into a side street, caulk and a box of tile sliding across his backseat, and watches a loping figure round into view from the other end.

This time, there’s no delay of recognition.  The rasp of breaths and the heartbeat that is all strain and fire are just as they’d been outside his loft all those weeks ago.

Stiles runs hard, coming down more heavily on his left leg and doesn’t stop to catch his breath until he’s ducked into an alley that’s one dumpster and two doorways.

Derek pulls off to the side and flashes his headlights twice.

He sees Stiles’ head tilt to the side, even with his shoulders hunched up around his ears and his palms on his knees.  He cautiously straightens up and jogs over.

Derek rolls down his window.  “Need a ride?”

Stiles grins, sloughing off his backpack and tossing it in under his feet.

They’re five minutes out of the alley when Derek clears his throat.  “I said you could call.”

Stiles peels back the fingerless glove of one hand.  It hasn’t protected the heel of his palm. It’s abraded and bleeding and he hisses when he eases the imitation leather back over it.  “You said, ‘last resort,’” he parrots. “We were at least four resorts away from that.”

“What were you running from?”

Stiles glances over at him with a frown.  “Dude, come on, you don’t wanna do that. You wanna woodwork and half-ass building repairs or whatever.  Your role’s changed. You live in Sunnydale and don’t even notice how fast we run through principals. It’s not a bad thing, y’know?

Derek starts in surprise.  “How do you know what I’ve been doing?”

Stiles shrugs.  “If there’s a keeper of town gossip, it’s the sheriff of that town.”  He grips his thigh, pressing his thumb down hard on the shock-y inner muscle.  He doesn’t ask what, if anything, Derek makes or why he’s moved back or why he’s acting as landlord to an empty building.  A quiet few minutes pass and eventually he leans his head back on the seat and asks, “You mind if I smoke in here?”

Derek rolls the window down on Stiles’ side in answer.

When Stiles lights up, it’s not tobacco that cascades out of his mouth but pot smoke.  “Shit, man. I am not built for hauling ass anymore.” He looks over at Derek and holds out the joint for him.

Derek shakes his head.  He nods at Stiles’ leg. “What happened there?”

Stiles’ laugh is rough with smoke.  “Perhaps a bit reductive but, uh, _life_ , man.”  He sits up straighter in his seat and indicates a soft shoulder on dead road.  “Hey, here should be good.”

It’s forested and dark and Derek can hear that there’s nothing but the rustle of leaves and the chittering of rodents around for miles.

Stiles leans back again, drags deep, and tries to pass once more.  “You sure?”

Derek takes it, relights, and takes a heavy pull.  He closes his eyes and sits with it for as long as he can.  It does nothing for him aside from give him at least a momentary _something_  to have in common with the total stranger sitting next to him.  Maybe Derek’s stopped letting Beacon Hills be his monster, but it’s got the starring role in Stiles’ nightmares, that much is obvious.  Why he’s looking for a connection is a question he’s not asking, not now at least. He opens his eyes and breathes out, only to find Stiles’ face a lot closer than before.

He tongues his lip ring and his fingers flex on the console between them.  He’s staring at Derek’s crotch before he looks up and catches his eye. “I really wanna touch you.”

Derek isn’t thinking, just reacting, when he spreads his thighs.

Stiles breathes sharply through his nose, taking it for acquiescence, and then his hand is grazing Derek through his jeans, knuckles gently bumping up against shaft.

Derek’s half-hard and breathing choppily at just the first brush.  Stiles takes the joint from where it’s burning between Derek’s fingers and says, “You gonna open your pants or what?”

He is.  He lifts up, drags them partway down his thighs and pulls his cock out of his boxer briefs.

Stiles leans down.  His pupils are blown and his lower lip is slick with spit.  He gets in close and breathes out a slow stream of smoke directly onto the head of Derek’s sticky cock.   Derek’s thighs  _quiver_  in response, precome starting to leak from the hot, stimulating air that’s more tease than promise.

“Fuck,” Stiles says.  He palms his own dick in his jeans with the scraped up hand and groans.  “You’re not cut,” he moans. “Shit, that’s hot.”

Derek has to bite back a whimper at the jacked up way Stiles is staring at his straining dick.  Like he wants to devour it. Or worship it. Either way, it shouldn’t be so goddamn arousing.

Stiles puts the joint to Derek’s lips and Derek takes it while Stiles wraps a sure hand around his now-full erection.  His strokes are slow and exploratory, then quick and efficient. He spreads out more on the seat so he can get lower and says, “God, I wanna suck you so bad.”

Derek has to take the joint out of his mouth when he nearly chokes on it in his haste to breathe back, “Yeah.”

Stiles strokes down, taking Derek’s foreskin with him, and his lips pucker on the head of Derek’s dick, slide open, suction around and  _suck_.  He does it once, twice, drags his tongue from slit to just beneath the head and Derek’s toes curl in his boots.  He pulls back, strokes twice more, then follows his fist down to the root and Derek can feel Stiles’ throat working against his shaft, his lip ring a recurring shock of cold every time it rotates.  The thumb of his free hand strokes the cut of Derek’s hip as he swallows and swallows and  _swallows_.

Derek groans, scrabbles with sharp nails at the ceiling before lowering a palm to Stiles’ head, coming up from his neck, heated skin leading into a mop of greasy, messy hair that Derek can  _grab_.  He yanks and Stiles leans partway away and lets his tongue play under Derek’s foreskin.

He pulls off entirely, spits wetly on the head of Derek’s dick, making sure his foreskin is out of the way so Derek can feel it slide over the slit, then there’s his thumb spreading saliva and pre-come around and around in circles before his lips are back, sucking at just the head while his fist works Derek’s shaft.

Further into his mouth, hand slipping lower.  His fingertips graze Derek’s sac and that’s all it takes for him to come hard in Stiles’ mouth.

Stiles opens the door and spits Derek’s come onto the dirt, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth.  He adjusts himself as he turns back and Derek can see the outline of his dick, hard and thick in his hand.

He leans back into the spill of the overhead light and what Derek had mistaken for a shadow is revealed to be dark,  _dark_  ink wrapped tightly to his neck, not so much a design as the  _absence_  of one.  The shape of Derek’s fingers is still preserved in Stiles’ hair and he grins, eyes glittering in the half-light, “Thanks for the ride, dude.”  He mashes his hand down to grab his backpack and slips out of the car.

Derek takes a minute to catch his breath, tosses the joint out his window, watches the crevice of his fingers heal the burnt skin, zips up his pants and eases back onto the road.

 

* * *

 

His first actual attempt at whittling is less than successful, though it is his first hands-on work that necessitates no duct tape — the wolf is blocky, cut unevenly around the haunches, and a little on the nose.  The library has a fairly robust section on both DIY whittling and cultural symbols of protection, serenity, and the like. Derek finds a table, a cup of coffee, and spreads out a stack of books around him. He has no idea how long he’s been at it when Stiles slides into the seat across from him.

For a guy with a limp, he’s surprisingly smooth.

He gestures at Derek’s cup, finger pointing around his own.  “Dude, there’s not even any Baileys in that. How is that supposed to get you through the day?”

Derek glances above him at the clock and raises an eyebrow back at Stiles’.  “It’s eleven a.m.”

Stiles winks at him.  “Never too early to start living your dreams.”  He takes his free hand out of his pocket and gestures around the table.  “How goes the, ah, book montage?”

Derek scrubs at his forehead.  “Slower, not all cut together. Missing the peppy music too.”  He leans back. “How goes the alcoholism?”

Stiles shrugs, not looking caught out in the slightest.  “Can’t complain. Especially as I’m basically immune to hangovers now.”  He grins wide, eyes pinched. “We all need our superpowers, right?” His gaze shifts off to the side and he bites at his lip ring.  He looks back, eyes tracking the hug of Derek’s henley, says casually, “Bet they have a handicap bathroom here where I could get on my knees for you.”

Derek snaps the book in front of him closed and Stiles slides out of his seat, loping off to the back where there’s a family bathroom just waiting for them to make it into more of an R-rated one. He barely gets the door closed before Stiles is on his knees, one hand shoved down the front of his jeans and the other working Derek’s open.

He doesn’t hesitate at all to suck Derek’s dick down and Derek knocks his hood back, holds the sides of his head and keeps his thrusts shallow but regular.  Stiles accommodates the movement easily, bobbing with him. He tugs harder at Derek’s jeans, getting them partway down his thighs, and runs his fingers over the crack of his ass, pulling him into his mouth on every other rock forward.

He pulls off before Derek comes, breathing hard through his nose and stroking him off with his hand.  He stands up, still pumping his fist, and breathes into Derek’s cheek, “Fuck, man, I gotta smoke less.  My lung capacity is for shit.”

Derek grabs the ass of Stiles’ jeans, his cupped hand sliding between Stiles’ legs and lifting him onto his thigh.  “This works too.”

Stiles finds a good angle on his hip, his jeans rough against Derek’s skin but not enough of an irritant for Derek to stop him, and his fingers squeeze and twist and rub until Derek comes hard against his own stomach.  Stiles is panting and biting against his neck, his collarbone, his jaw when he finally slams into his own orgasm, Derek’s hands gripping his ass tight. He catches his breath — pressed all up along Derek’s front — for a half-second before pulling back with a smirk.

He pats Derek’s chest, offers, “Nice running into you again,” before scrubbing down his front with a paper towel, tossing it into the trash, and pushing his way out of the bathroom.

 

* * *

 

Derek glances between the print-out and the wood again.  He’s got a kind of… shape and a pile of shavings at his feet.  He shuffles it into a smaller, more spread out rectangle with the toe of his shoe, glad he had the presence of mind to move this out to the balcony.

It’s not —  _quite_  the exact reproduction he was aiming for and, might, in fact, possibly, look more like a felony confession than a symbol of protection.

In his defense, balsa wood gives like water and the grain is light enough to really show the blood stains.

He’s kept the worst of it fairly confined to himself so while he looks like a murder scene, his balcony mostly looks like he was recently running a miniature and poorly manned wood chipper on it.  He glances over his shoulder with a grunt. After the third or fourth time he brought the knife back too hard and cut himself, he elbowed one of the panes and, well — he’s hoping the crack won’t spread before he can get it dealt with.

He’ll put some duct tape on it in the meantime.

 

* * *

 

It shatters the next morning as he’s trying to fix it and Derek hits Cora’s number on speed dial, hangs up halfway through the first ring, and tries another he hasn’t called in a handful of years.

The line connects as it’s falling into the sixth ring and Derek says, “Want to grab a beer?”

Stiles laughs, clink of glasses and a low murmur of voices in the background, says, “There’s a bar on sixteenth,” and hangs up.

It’s a sports bar, low twang of a country song polluting the air, and as much a dry husk as one might expect at a quarter shy of eleven on a Tuesday morning.  Derek slides onto the stool next to Stiles’ and says, “Come here often?”

A coaster is dropped in front of him and a middle-aged woman leans over the bar, sends a caustic glance Stiles’ way, and snorts.  “I’m his emergency contact. What can I get ya?”

Derek orders a refill on Stiles’ pint and whatever’s on draft for himself.  He has a feeling anything less than alcoholic wouldn’t be deemed acceptable.

Stiles scratches a thumbnail over the rasp of stubble on his chin, only half-turning Derek’s way.  His sneakers are bouncing on the lower bar of his stool, knees spread wide apart, claiming his space.  He picks his elbows up off the bar, not noticing his hoodie sliding through his own water rings. His hair’s a snarl on his head and the dark tattoo peeking over the fold of his lowered hood looks even more sinister in the middle of the day.  A bloodshot eye carefully tracks the dark hair on Derek’s forearms and the looseness of his t-shirt, collar gaping as Derek shifts towards him.

He bites at the dry skin on his lip, pieces tearing away.  “Whatever it is you think I am,” he says, “I’m not.”

The curve of Stiles’ chest looks almost concave but Derek can’t tell if that’s just a side effect of his inability to sit up straight.  He raises a careful eyebrow. “An alcoholic.”

Stiles grins.  It’s got that slant of warning to it again but all he says is: “All right, whatever  _else_  you think.”

Derek leans in closer, curious.  Stiles’ scent is lived in and worn and his fingernails are flicking at the new glass in front of him.  “And what do I think?” He takes a swallow of his own drink, waiting out the answer.

Stiles turns all the way to him, gaze assessing.  His knee nudges the inside of Derek’s, their legs becoming almost a tessellation as Stiles slides to the edge of his stool.  “A friend,” he guesses, “project, confidant, boyfriend, I — ”

“Gonna tell your bartender about my broken window?” Derek interrupts, swallowing another mouthful of nearly undrinkable beer.  His throat slowly starts to ease away from the tightness Stiles’ words brought to it.

“Probably.  Tongue gets loose around nine or so.”

Which means Stiles has no intention of leaving any time soon.  And Derek can’t choke back the question this time. “Where is Scott?”

Stiles’ eyes narrow, heel digging down on the bar of his seat and shifting him back across his stool, away from Derek.  “Around.” He faces the bar, blinking for a long moment, picks up his glass, swallows, sets it down and moves back. His thigh finds the space between Derek’s legs and his hand slips off his own knee and onto the in-seam of Derek’s jeans.  He stops just shy of Derek’s crotch. “Want me to set something up? Pretty sure he’s not into dudes but I bet he’ll let you suck his dick anyway. Guy makes people pleasing into an extreme sport.”

Derek’s breath catches when Stiles squeezes the rise of his dick against his thigh and he says thickly, “Let me take you home.”

Stiles pulls away with a soft laugh, drags his pint towards him and swallows it down to the bottom one-third.  “You’re too hairy for spandex, my man. Leave the hero complex to the guys who wax.”

“I’m not trying to save you, Stiles, I’m trying to fuck you.”

Stiles blinks, and Derek is gratified to see him drop a hand to his own dick and press down hard.  “Oh. Oh yeah.” He chugs the rest of his beer and stands up a bit unevenly. “Fuck yeah, let’s do that.”

 

* * *

 

Stiles’ hands frame the curve of his hips, thumbs pressing him back against the doorframe.  His fingers smooth up the plane of Derek’s stomach, scrape down to the top ridge of his jeans and tug.  His teeth drag against the vein in Derek’s neck and his hands leave the catch of Derek’s jeans to press flat to the wall on either side of his head, body pressing up against Derek’s, hard and lean and demanding.

Derek fits a hand down the back of Stiles jeans, grabs a round and smooth ass cheek and gives in to the flex of Stiles’ hips, stops trying to push them inside to appease some nonexistent neighbor’s sense of propriety.

Stiles’ fingers clench themselves to the ball of his shoulder, tips pressing in hard and Derek groans at the desperation in the movement, both hands grabbing Stiles by his ass, lifting him and slamming him up against the wall.

Once it’s taken his weight, Derek lets his hands find Stiles’ stomach under his omnipresent shirt and hoodie, lets them roam and grab and pull.  Stiles is wiry and stronger than he looks and when his hands grasp for Derek, it’s an effort to keep his feet planted, to keep from falling too far into the angle of Stiles’ hips, the rhythm shocky and punching out his breath on every return.

Derek’s heart thumps hard, cock pulsing in time with it, and sweat is coating his scalp when Stiles slides his fingers over it, clasping at his hair and pulling him into the crook of his neck, grinding harder.  Stiles smells like sweat and beer and want and Derek licks a stripe up the side of his neck, trying to devour all of it.

“Harder,” is huffed against the side of Derek’s head, breath thin but humid, and the angle of Stiles’ jaw clenched hard against his temple.

It’s Derek’s turn to press his hands against the wall by Stiles’ shoulders, to fuck him fully-clothed and riding the edge to the point of painful.  The weight of Stiles’ thighs against his hips is constant and arousing and Stiles’ hands scrabble down Derek’s shoulders, bunching up his t-shirt, pulling it halfway up his back and Derek comes hard just as the cooler air of the hall suctions itself to his exposed skin.

His skin is prickling, hair raised, and he presses his hands back to Stiles’ stomach and feels the muscles contract when Stiles comes right after him.

He pants for a half-second then slides down Derek’s front, more of a slow motion collapse than a purposeful action, presses his chin, his nose, into Derek’s collarbone, leaning into him.

“Come inside,” Derek offers, opening the door behind him so Stiles can tumble in agreeably enough.

 

* * *

 

Derek’s awareness comes in pieces, a long inhale bringing with it a scent of soap and sex and sliding down onto his back makes him realize he’s not the only one shifting.  He instinctively turns his head towards it and the sight that hits him makes his dick hard so fast it  _aches_.

Toes are curled into his sheets, bare feet arched, thighs resting heavy and spread, shoulders digging and flexing, hips rising to meet the twist and push of Stiles’ fingers as he works them into himself.  His head falls to the side, hair wet and drying with a slight wave to it. His voice is breathy when he says, “Finally. You have lube somewhere? All I found in your bathroom were q-tips and a random square of tile in your shower that doesn’t match anything else.”

Derek can’t think, let alone speak.  There’s what Stiles is  _doing_  and then there’s the fact that Stiles is naked and — not what Derek would’ve expected.

He’s almost unrecognizable.

Plateaus of the familiar — mole-dotted and pale expanses — are broken up by the sudden jut of shadow eating its way across Stiles’ skin.  Matte black stretches down his arms, his legs, peeking around the curve of his neck, his side, and his ass where it’s pressed flush to the mattress.  It’s not quite the solid ink that Derek first thought, not entirely.

There are geometric lines and cut-outs of nothing more than darkness, but they’re all eventually framed by a small border of unmarked skin, which is then striped with a design like snake skin.  Only the design isn’t created by the ink — not when the ink has left more surface area claimed than not — instead it’s formed by the places where the tattoo gun  _hasn’t_  strayed, where there’s still unarmored skin peeking through.

Derek presses his fingertips to the empty darkness on Stiles’ hip.  “What did you — ”

“Lube,” Stiles says again, his hips still and vocal cords strained.

Derek shakes his head.  “I don’t — There isn’t — ”

Stiles grunts, rolling his eyes and offering an incoherent mutter under his breath.  He pulls at the top of his dick, gathering precome, spits into his hand, rolls over Derek’s thighs, and says, “Just get those off.”

Derek snags the sides of his boxers and pulls them down so Stiles can reach his dick unimpeded.

His hand is sure and comfortable on Derek’s shaft, his strokes lazy — if awkward — as he works behind himself, his dick remarkably hard against the plane of Derek’s stomach.

Derek’s hands find Stiles’ thighs, fit over the curve of them, the heft and heat of them resting over his hips, his fingers spreading over the endless ink, following the lines and devouring the darkness, his palms grazing the wiry hair and soft skin as Stiles centers himself and sinks down onto Derek’s cock.  Arousal like Derek’s never felt before wicks through his entire body, forcing his hips up and driving his dick deeper into Stiles.

Stiles drags in a shaky, stuttered breath and drops his palms to Derek’s chest, not a caress as much as a weight to hold him down, keep him still.  Then his hips slowly,  _slowly_  start to grind, back and forth and forward and back, riding Derek in a steady but constant rhythm.

Every time Derek tries to up the pace, Stiles slows him right back down, lazily riding his cock with soft moans and even pressure.  His head drops back, spine arching, one hand on Derek’s knee behind him and the other idly stroking his cock. It’s only once Stiles finally lets Derek sit up, wrap his arms around his waist, feel out the breadth of his shoulders with his hands and touch his dick that he comes.

Derek rolls them carefully and Stiles’ grasps him tight, digging at his shoulder blades, a calf thrown over his thigh and Derek fucks him into the mattress, grabbing at his hips, until he comes barely a minute later.

Stiles pushes weakly at his shoulder with the heel of his palm and Derek pulls out of him gingerly, sinking onto his back next to him.

He misses the weight over him and under him now that it’s gone.

Stiles stretches and sits and leans down over the edge of the bed, standing up with his jeans in his hand, and Derek can see the full spread of Stiles’ tattoo for the first time.  It hugs his entire back side, from neck to ankle, and only rounds his front on his arms and legs, sans his left calf.

“I can see why you keep covered.”

Stiles looks back over his shoulder, down at the ink on his back, smirks.  “Right? Wouldn’t want to intimidate the wrong person. Or supernatural beastie.”  He pulls on his jeans, shoves his hands into his pockets to get them to lay flat and climbs the button fly one at a time.  Once he’s got all but the top button done, he lassos his shirt over his head without bothering to get into it, grins over the collar.  “You do sex good, by the way.”

Derek blinks at him.  He’s off-balance from the comment, or from how quickly Stiles can process an afterglow, and finds himself saying, “It’s well-documented that the lighting in the Floor & Decor showroom distorts the coloring.”

Stiles’ head tilts, bemused.  He says without sympathy, “That tile in there is purple, Derek.  _Purple_.”  He buttons the last button on his jeans, crawls halfway across the bed, presses a wet kiss to the head of Derek’s dick, pulls down his foreskin and slides his tongue across the slit.  “Also, I really, really like your dick.”

“It likes you.”  Which Derek regrets saying the instant it’s out of his mouth.  Not because it’s untrue, but because it’s all his fucked-stupid brain cells can manage and it sounds as intelligent as one might expect.

Stiles just grins again, finally managing to get his shirt on, and salutes him on the way out the door.

 

* * *

 

The woodworking hits somewhat of a snag when Derek has to spend the next week and a half jerking off to the memory of fucking Stiles what feels like every other minute.  And it’s still warm enough that his broken window can stay broken a while. His phone rings as he’s finally getting back to it, reading up on sturdier wood grains, and Cora says, “Oh.  You are alive,” like she’s lost some bet with herself, “that’s one mystery solved.”

“I’ve been busy.”

“Brooding?” she guesses.  “No, sulking. Oh! Perfecting a depression cave.”

“Whittling,” Derek says, wishing the excuse weren’t so… excuse-ish, “I whittle now.”

“I  _don’t_  think that counts as busy.”

Derek is still debating starting this conversation even as it slowly pulls out of his mouth.  “There’s also been other — things.”

“‘Things?’” Cora parrots.  “Well that’s descriptive.”

“I’ve been — I haven’t been keeping entirely to myself.”

Cora doesn’t have to question who or what; she knows him well enough to know it’s got to be an old entanglement rather than a new one.  “I thought you weren’t involving yourself in any of that anymore,” she says, disappointment and judgment warring for what gets to beat Derek down more.  “Wasn’t that part of the deal?”

“I’m not involved in it, not — not really.”

He can tell Cora doesn’t believe him, but that she wants to.  “Which means?”

He thumbs at the corner of the pages he’d been reading when his phone rang.  “I see Stiles. Sometimes. We don’t talk about…” his brow furrows, realizing they don’t just leave out the danger and the supernatural, they leave out, “anything.”

“Then you see him because?”

It’s a valid question, one Derek doesn’t know how to answer.  He’s pretty sure his silence ends up doing that for him anyway.

Cora’s almost laughing as she says, “You’re kidding me, right?”  It’s a joke until Derek doesn’t answer it and she sobers. “You’re sleeping with him?”

Derek can’t tell if the disbelief is for the who or the what.  “I — I don’t know what we’re doing,” he admits.

Cora barely seems thrown by that, her only concern is: “Are you  _okay_  with what you’re doing?”

Derek doesn’t mean to say, “Maybe.  Possibly,” out loud and quickly lands hard on, “ _Probably_ ,” when he realizes he has.  He’s a little bothered by the fact that it’s Cora who asked that question of him first, and not himself.

“Well that sounds certain.”

“I — ” he stops, trying to find a thing he  _is_  certain about.  “I’m not looking for complicated.”

“Yeah, it’s funny how no one is ever really  _looking_  for that,” she says.

Derek swallows, not really sure where to go from here.  He doesn’t want to think about this because the only way this thing with Stiles works is if he doesn’t.

And Cora seems to know it, says, “So tell me about this sudden urge to whittle, how many pints of blood have you lost?”

Derek gratefully seizes on the topic change.  “At least a couple.”

Cora’s bright laughter chases away the harder questions, at least for the moment.

 

* * *

 

Derek fixes the window and breaks the knob for hot water on his kitchen sink and doesn’t call Stiles all in the same week.  He’s quietly boycotting Floor & Decor and their deceptive lighting and, instead, takes to picking apart everything that’s happened with Stiles while standing in the sink aisle of Lowe’s.

He only hasn’t done so before because it hadn’t seemed to need it.  It was natural and familiar and  _clear_  from the moment Stiles had shown up outside his door.

Which is, of course, the thing he should’ve been overanalyzing — that he hadn’t wanted to.  He’s not someone who takes things at face value, who doesn’t suspect a more sinister plot of occurring beneath the surface, except —

Except there’s Stiles, who  _is_  the exception.  Stiles, who’s never hesitated to tell Derek exactly what he means, who’s proven he can be trusted time and time again, who makes Derek feel better than any reckless alcoholic has the right to.

_Fuck_.

Derek’s kind of in love with him, isn’t he?

Which seems obvious now but was so instinctive before he hadn’t even noticed it.  And Stiles is — not all there. But. His affection does exist, mostly drowsy and on the fringes of sleep, without focus or intent.

After a pyramid-topping beer or a four a.m. get-together, his palm will plunk down on Derek’s forearm, all weight and warmth and lack of direction.  Whorls and lines of his fingers will drift and ebb and flow along Derek’s skin through nothing more than a comfortable absentmindedness. Not soft as much as undeniably  _present_.

It’s always just enough to make Derek’s hair stand on end, to make his skin tighten.  Stiles will drag and bump with those same fingers and say with a smirk when no amount of eyebrow bouncing will keep his eyelids from growing too heavy, “Help me find your bed,” because he thinks his complete lack of social graces, his muddled headspace, is attractive in some way.

It isn’t.

Derek can’t explain why it always makes it hard for him to swallow, though.

At any other time, his physicality is sharp and crowding.  Elbows into arms and knees into thighs, overfilling his space and spilling into Derek’s.  It would be nice, almost. Only Stiles is distinct angles and hard edges and, besides, he’s jockeying for space rather than trying to share it.

He’s only so large a presence awake and preemptively defensive.  Asleep, he’s small and distant. Protective of his space but strict about keeping to the self-made boundaries of it.  He doesn’t lumber into Derek on a pitch or roll or smack a hand into the flesh of his thigh. His sleep is restive, but static, his back almost always the only view Derek has of it.

He’s not so light a sleeper that Derek can’t touch him though, feel the heat of his skin under all that ink, follow the notches of spine down as far as they go or skip across the scales curling over his side.  All that so anyone looking will forget how soft and breakable he really is.

As close as Derek gets though, it’s impossible to miss.

Which is likely why so few people have been where Derek is, something he knows instinctively without Stiles having to say it.

And the more opportunities Derek’s gotten to stare at it, the more he thinks he understands it.  Stiles’ ink is an abyss, starless galaxies, black holes, more void than shape. Anything unmarked exists only to delineate the nothingness left to him.  The draw and pull of his shoulders ripples the snake skin and leaves the darkness still.

He’s either untouchable or poised to strike.

Just the kind of man you want to want something from.

 

* * *

 

Derek’s wrong though.  The rest is a side effect, or a weight Derek’s given it himself.  When Stiles shows up with an aluminum bat through the straps of his backpack, a swollen jaw and a split lip, it’s clear what the real purpose of it is.

It’s camouflage.

What had he said all those months ago?  ‘We all need our superpowers.’ This is Stiles’ way of coping with the fact that he never got any, hiding all the ways he doesn’t fit by literally blotting over the bruises and breaks, making himself look less human to bury the lede that he is.

Derek makes a rough grab for his face before catching the scrape — or maybe roadrash — on his neck and softening to more of a caress.

Stiles jerks away with a pinched expression, drops his bag and hoodie by the door.

Derek can’t tell if the injuries spread lower.  All he can see is ink.

Which is, of course, the point.

“What happened?”

Stiles’ smile is crooked because one side of his mouth isn’t really mobile.  He tongues the inside of his uninjured lip, shrugs. “I switched from a ring to a stud.”

Derek snags him by the arm as he tries to pass, not playing along.  He can’t. He wants to know. He wants to prevent Stiles’ face from meeting a fist no matter how often he has to do it.  “Call.”

Stiles clenches his jaw, like he’s revelling in the hurt of it.  “Really tempted by that spandex, huh? I’m not gonna lie, body like that, you could definitely rock it and we could set you up with some sort of double ‘w’ insignia — true, people might confuse you for Wonder Woman, but that’s just good PR, that franchise is killing it right now — but understand that that’s a solo job.  You can play hero or you can be the guy on the ground who fucks me.”

Derek tightens his hand on Stiles’ arm, lets go, says with gravel in his voice, “Get undressed.”

Stiles smirks, partly because it’s all he can do with his mouth.  “Fuck, I wanna blow you for that but,” he probes at his cheek, “that’s kinda off the table tonight.”

Derek shoves Stiles back against his door as he sinks to his knees.  “Guess I’ll have to make do then.” A yank on Stiles’ jeans gets his dick out.  It’s thick and long and Derek loves the wrap of his hand around it, the feel and the fit of it.  He pulls Stiles off with strong strokes before wrapping his mouth around him, burying his nose in the unadulterated scent of him, breathing deep.

Stiles slides his hands into Derek’s hair, clasps the back of his head, but doesn’t make any demands on his direction or depth, instead letting Derek feel out the length of him, suck him like he’s been dying to suck him.

One hand works Stiles’ shaft and Derek’s other shoves down the front of his pants to work his own.  He can’t help but try to savor it, to lick from root to tip, suck and slurp and tongue around the head, to make it last.

Stiles seems to realize his game after a while and he lets Derek take his time, strokes the shell of his ear with his thumb, traces the twisting veins down Derek’s forearm with his fingertips, rocking his hips in a steady but slow rhythm.

He doesn’t come until Derek sinks a finger into him, then chuckles when he swallows.  “Such a boy scout,” he says, and it’s almost an accusation.

Derek purposefully turns away from him.  “Give me a few minutes to recharge and you’ll appreciate that rumored preparedness.”  He listens for the sound of Stiles’ hands finishing the process of getting himself back in order, turning him down, and ducking out the door.  A minute passes, two, and Derek sits carefully down on the side of his bed and finds Stiles still standing at the door.

He works his tongue behind the stud, pressing against it from the inside.  “A quick five,” he agrees after a moment, walking to the other side of Derek’s bed, pulling his t-shirt off over his head and shimmying out of his jeans before slipping under the covers.

Derek strips down too.

Stiles rolls over onto his side, facing away from him, and eventually falls into a restive sleep.

Derek watches him and it’s hours before his fingertips start to itch, Stiles’ bare back across a foot or so of empty bed space.  He reaches out carefully and drags his hand slowly down the illusion of scales but all he feels are vulnerabilities — scars and softness — not armor.

Stiles shifts on his side, the pattern over his spine bending and bowing, and Derek pulls his hand away.

Stiles grunts, flattens onto his stomach.

The snake skin and shadows follow him, over the swell of his ass, the curvature of his thighs and down the gradual rise of one calf.  Its opposite the only part still untouched.

Derek’s starting to realize that’s because it’s a work in progress, not a finished design.

Stiles’ back rises and falls and Derek watches the scales slither and breathe on his skin.  Hiding damage as well as ordinariness. This — It really is Stiles’ attempt to be something more than he is, more than human, something made of monsters and night.

But he still walks with a limp and complements the black and white with purples and blues and greens.

Someone should’ve told him that before he’d covered all that unburdened innocence.  Before he’d decided it was more important to seem fierce and immune to the worst the world has to offer.

Derek thinks maybe he’s forgotten he isn’t.  Forgotten to take care of himself because he’s convinced himself he doesn’t have to.  Maybe then he wouldn’t accuse Derek of wanting to be his hero if he remembered he was supposed to be his own.

 

* * *

 

“It’s an apple.”

Stiles accepts the gnarl of pine Derek’s been working at for the last hour.  “It’s a knot of wood you couldn’t shape, that was originally kind of globular, that you’re now calling an ‘apple.’  Kind of the same way you’re calling the kitchen sink ‘fixed.’”

“It’s been a journey,” Derek agrees.

Stiles snorts, taking a swig of his beer.

Derek squints against the sun as it crests the building across from them.  “Bit early for that.”

Stiles huffs out something like a laugh, tongues at his lip ring, and says, “It’s made for drinking.  I’m drinking it.”

“Right.”  Derek’s jaw ticks.  “Maybe I could find you a real fruit and you could get your calories from solids for a change.”

Stiles chuckles.  “And maybe you can join the next intervention.  My dad and Scott’s speeches have both grown kind of stale over the years, lotta the same, ‘you should stop doing this because it makes me feel bad despite the fact that it’s all that makes you feel good,’ you know the drill.  It’d be a nice change of pace, honestly.”

Derek swallows roughly, shifting in his seat.  He hasn’t picked up much about Stiles’ life — content to deal with the compartmentalized versions he was presented, knowing they’d be easier to swallow — so he doesn’t know where Stiles’ father and Scott fit into it now.  What he does to pass the time. He doesn’t even know if Stiles still lives at home or if he has his own place. It hadn’t seemed important until —

Until this stopped being something casual, something Derek just fell into because it was there and it was easy.  Until it was no longer something he could stand outside of and  _want_.  Until he decided he didn’t want what was easy to swallow as much as he wanted what was  _real_.

The beer on Stiles’ breath is all Derek can smell and the blackness swallowing his skin as he raises the bottle to his lips is especially stark this morning.

Right.

 

* * *

 

Telling him goes — sideways.  Derek isn’t clear at all when he says, “I can’t be more with you.”

Stiles tightens his grip on his beer and doesn’t look at him.

“You’re destructing,” he says after a while.  “Disappearing into ink and alcohol and cutting out anyone who mentions either.  I can let you do that, or I can step back.”

Stiles slams the bottle down on the table with it halfway to his mouth, beer frothing up and bubbling over.  “You know what?” he says in a trembling, quiet sort of whisper. “I didn’t fucking  _ask_.  I’m not some shrinking damn violet and this isn’t the plot to some summer rom-com full of miscommunication and quirky coincidences, okay?  I am perfectly capable of opening up my mouth and asking to be your fucking boyfriend. I haven’t, and I wasn’t pining to either.”

He stands up so violently that it launches the coffee table across a foot or so of empty space.  He rounds the couch, snags a hand in his hair, and there’s a rare moment of — of vulnerability when he stops and says, “Fuck, you just — you had to ruin it, didn’t you?  Not as evolved as you fucking think then, are you?”

And none of that is what Derek meant, not really.  And he’s not the guy who doesn’t say what he means anymore.  He stands up and blocks Stiles’ path and says, “I  _wanted_  you to want to.”

Stiles freezes.  “What?” He looks up at Derek, eyes searching and ready to detect the slightest hint of bullshit.  “Since when?”

Derek’s thought about this, and thought about this.  Because he knew telling Stiles, that was ending this, and there’s no part that’s going to be unclear to either of them once this is through.

“Since you dove into the front of a police car and told me you weren’t afraid of me.  Being around you is — clarity. I know who I am. I know who I want to be. I’m  _understood_  and I have never had that with anyone.”  Not that Derek knew it then but that’s the common thread around Stiles, something he hadn’t realized he was missing until he was no longer missing it.  Maybe that’s why Derek hadn’t questioned this, because Stiles has always felt so much like an answer to him. “It’s — Seeing you so lost… You anchor me, and I don’t anchor you.  I want to.”

That’s what it comes down to, and Derek has an entire mess of wood shavings and splinters and half-carved logs and broken knives on his balcony that can attest to how difficult it was to find those words to put it into.

Stiles’ hand twists into the couch cushion, eyes hooded and darting away.  “Being lost is all that’s keeping me sane.”

“I know,” Derek says, and he does.  There’s no part of him that doesn’t understand.  “But it doesn’t have to be.”

 

* * *

 

Stiles leaves for a while, for longer than Derek can comfortably stomach, but he comes back too.  He stands at Derek’s door with his hands in his hoodie pockets and he says, “I’m trying to want this for me.  For more than just you.” And Derek knows what he means. That right now he wants to be better because Derek relies on him, not because he relies on himself.  “I’m working on that.”

“Okay.”

“I don’t, want this.  Not yet.”

He wants to stay lost, to not be responsible, to not have to figure out a better way to be.  Derek gets that and says so. “I know.”

“I’m trying,” he says again, and Derek believes that too.

 

* * *

 

Derek stops letting him come over drunk and starts keeping the loft dry.  It leads to far more nights without Stiles than with him but Derek’s not impatient, and he wants this.  More importantly, he wants Stiles to want it.

His phone chimes as he’s carving out the triskele, blowing away the shavings.  It’s not perfect, not yet, but it’s clear what it’s supposed to be even if it’s got a few bumps and uneven patches.  He checks the screen, pulling up the message from Stiles.

_Been sober forty-eight hours.  What does that get me?_

It’s not the first message he’s gotten like this, but they’re starting to come more frequently.

_What do you want?_

He doesn’t have a chance to put his phone back before Stiles replies:

_That’s worth at least a hand job._

Derek’s still typing out his response when a follow-up message cuts him off:

_Aiming for a date, though.  Not sure if that’s enough to cash in._

Derek hits the call button and says as soon as it connects, “It’s enough.”

Stiles huffs and he sounds frustrated and hopeful.  “I’m not — I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing here, Derek.”

“I know.”  Derek holds his breath and gambles, “I can help if you let me.”

Stiles is quiet for a moment, then: “Okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> i have a [tumblr](http://wellhalesbells.tumblr.com/), because i deserve nice things.


End file.
